A day with Jos city’s ‘bicycle doctor’

At the ever busy Layin Zanah Junction around Bauchi Road, in Jos North local government area of Plateau State, hundreds of bicycles are assembled. Usually neatly arranged and eating up part of the tarred busy street. This is where bicycles that defy the hands of other mechanics in Plateau State end up. They are mostly transported from various parts of Plateau’s hinterlands and neighbouring Bauchi and Kaduna states to either be fixed or sold off.

Kassimu Danjuma, 36, has been nicked named the `Bicycle Doctor’ and by his spot, just by the main road, you would find all kinds of electric and manual bicycles painstakingly parked according to their heights, grades and brands for easy identification.

Danjuma is known to not only sell and repair bicycles but also buys used or broken ones that may have defied repair. He also sells spareparts and gives out his bicycles to young children and adults for hire charging N50 for 20 minutes.

What however attracts many to Danjuma is not the brightly refurbished bicycles he has but the heap of bicycles scraps he works hard to bring back to life.  Dressed in blue automotive mechanic work clothing, Danjuma sold some spare parts to his clients before attending to our reporter. He explained that he started his business  some 25 years ago when his father who was a bicycle mechanic gave him bicycle parts and asked him to put them together and use it to go to school.

“I used to work on turner, nuts and bolts. I fixed the bicycle and from there I became a full time bicycle mechanic. Later I started hiring, buying and selling bicycles,” he said.

Scraps are brought to Danjuma from various parts of Plateau as well as from neighbouring states while most of his fairly used bicycles are brought from Lagos and Kano.

“Sometimes I travel to the neighbouring villages myself to buy old bicycles or scraps at the rate of N2, 000 and above, depending on the grade of the bicycle. I sell small Belgium bicycles for N11, 000 while the bigger ones are sold for N13, 000 and above. It is a good business because I sell at least three bicycles daily,” he said.

Despite being established, like many entrepreneurs, Danjuma faces the challenge of low capital and laments that some of his apprentices are reluctant to learn the job.

“They would start then along the way, they run away and this is posing a threat to the profession.  “I have trained about 60 people in the last 25 years but I still need to do more for my community. Out of the people I trained about seven have their shops because they completed the training.”

But the ‘bicycle doctor,’ as he is fondly called, says life has been kind to him. He has been able to build a house, marry and care for his family from proceeds of the trade. He, however, still wants government to support all medium and small scale entrepreneurs with soft loans or provide an enabling environment for them to thrive.